It’s not easy to keep all of this straight.

Without divisions, but with a new 12-team Playoff, there’s more than ever for a fan base of a contending team to monitor. You want to know what your team needs to make the field. I hear you.

I also hear people saying, “Don’t worry about other teams and just win.” Yep, that’s also true. But with as many as 6 (!) SEC teams finishing the regular season with 10 wins, we have to discuss what could be determining factors. Ergo, the thing that your team needs to root for.

Let’s remember that getting to the SEC Championship is still, in theory, the most direct path to the Playoff. We’ll debate what it means to lose that game for a top-12 team — that would disincentivize conference championship games like never before in the sport and defeat the entire purpose of conference championships — but let’s pretend that’s the logical approach here. By the way, that logic should apply everywhere, not just the SEC.

So what should SEC teams be rooting for or against? Let’s dig into it.

Oh, and real quick … these are the national results that all SEC contenders should root for

Because every SEC contender has the possibility of being an at-large Playoff team as it stands, these are the realistic scenarios to root for outside of the conference that apply to every potential at-large contender in the SEC:

  • Notre Dame suffers loss No. 2
  • Penn State suffers loss No. 2
  • SMU or Miami suffers loss No. 2 in the regular season
  • Colorado or BYU loses another game in the regular season and can only get in via a conference title
  • Indiana gets walloped by Ohio State OR Ohio State loses to IU and Michigan

More or less, those would all be positive developments for SEC teams hoping to make it in as an at-large team. Here’s the rooting guide for each SEC team’s Playoff path:

Alabama

Quite simply, Alabama can root for chalk and logic. What do I mean by that? If chalk plays out with only favorites winning in SEC games the next 2 weeks, the Tide will play in the SEC Championship. The Tide would win the tiebreaker because its conference opponents’ win percentage was better than Georgia’s, Ole Miss’, Tennessee’s and Texas A&M’s. (We broke down SEC scenarios here.)

Outside of dropping a game against Oklahoma or Auburn, what could disrupt Alabama’s SEC Championship path, you ask? It’s not a single-game result. It would take several upsets. For example, if all the favorites won except for Mizzou losing to both Mississippi State and Arkansas, that would knock Alabama out of the SEC Championship. Georgia would get that spot in Atlanta.

I know what you’re thinking. You could say that scenario would actually benefit Alabama because it would be a lock to get into the field at 10-2 without playing in the SEC Championship. That’s where the “logic” part matters for Alabama’s rooting interest. Logic says that no team should fall out of the Playoff field simply because it earns a spot in the conference championship and it loses. The focus of conference championship games should be competing for that first-round bye, not being put in an all-or-nothing spot that idle teams avoided by being worse.

If logic wins out, Alabama’s Playoff path should be fairly straightforward if it wins these final 2 regular season games.

Georgia

It’s a similar conversation to Alabama. You have all those aforementioned out-of-conference scenarios that would bode well for Georgia. That lopsided Ole Miss loss might put a limit on the ceiling of that ranking and it could put UGA on the road for a first-round Playoff game. But Ole Miss getting that 3rd loss by losing at Florida or against Mississippi State would be the most obvious way for Georgia’s ranking ceiling to change before the conference championship.

That’s right, Dawgs fans. You’re rooting for Florida this weekend. These are new times we’re living in.

That could be the difference in traveling for a first-round Playoff game or hosting one in Sanford Stadium, where Kirby Smart is 45-1 since the start of 2017. Significant? You bet.

Apply that logic to Alabama, as well. The Tide have the head-to-head against Georgia, but if they lost to Oklahoma or Auburn, that’s 1 less team blocking UGA from earning a 5 through 8 at-large spot to host a home Playoff game. Of course, Alabama is also currently the biggest thing standing in the way of UGA making it to the SEC Championship for the 4th consecutive season. An Alabama loss sends UGA to the SEC Championship.

While head-to-head isn’t the only deciding factor for all these potential 10-2 SEC teams (more on that in a bit with Tennessee), Texas getting destroyed by A&M would bode well for UGA. No, that alone wouldn’t put UGA in the SEC Championship, but it would have to be one fewer at-large team that’s ranked ahead of the Dawgs. Georgia would, however, reach the SEC Championship if Auburn beat A&M, and then the Aggies turned around and beat Texas.

That’s right, Dawg fans. You’re also rooting for Auburn each of the next 2 weekends. These are new times we’re living in.

Ole Miss

Ole Miss is relatively straightforward because of how unlikely it is to reach the SEC Championship. Lane Kiffin’s skepticism about the potential risk of playing in the conference championship shouldn’t be an issue for his team unless the following scenario happens:

  • Ole Miss wins out AND:
    • Texas A&M loses to Auburn and Texas
    • Alabama loses to either Oklahoma or Auburn
    • Tennessee loses to Vandy

If all of those boxes are somehow checked with chalk everywhere else in SEC games, Ole Miss would face Texas in the SEC Championship. But more than likely, Ole Miss will be in an at-large spot. It can root for all of those scenarios to bolster that position. The weird thing about the way that the schedule played out is that among the potential 6 SEC teams who could be 10-2, Ole Miss only played 1 of them, and it was a decisive blowout against Georgia. That could make for a fascinating discussion about seeding as it relates to hosting a home Playoff game.

Tennessee

I’d compare Tennessee’s current situation to a poker scenario. Stick with me on this one, or just skip to the part where I stop talking about poker. If the Vols were playing a little Texas Hold ‘Em, they would be the person who flopped an open-ended straight draw and a flush draw. As long as they get to 10 wins, AKA stay in the hand, they’ll have outs. They need to hit on those outs on the turn or the river to win the hand.

(I realize that person can also bet somebody out of the hand, which would be a bluff of sorts depending on when that bet is made. Missing the draws and then betting big after the river would be a bluff. Betting big after the flop in hopes of getting paid off for potentially hitting that draw is a different story.)

OK, here’s what that means for the Vols. They have 1 win against an FBS team with a winning record, which suggests that none of Tennessee’s other wins are about to become Top 25 wins by that final Playoff ranking. Yes, that 1 win vs. an FBS team with a winning record was against Alabama. However, the head-to-head argument cannot be cleanly applied to every argument. Why? Well, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee all went 1-1 against each other. You can’t say the head-to-head is the deciding factor because then if you applied that logic to Tennessee and ranked the Vols ahead of Alabama, you’d have to rank Georgia ahead of Tennessee but not Alabama.

Tennessee could be in danger of getting bumped out of the Playoff field if a non-top 12 team from the ACC or Big 12 wins a conference title. Remember that Notre Dame is also now ahead of Tennessee and in a position to earn an at-large berth if it just wins out. If logic holds and a 2-loss SEC Championship participant isn’t punished by suffering loss No. 3 in Atlanta, that works against the Vols. Of course, the selection committee could decide that a 3rd loss, no matter when it happens before the Playoff, is a deal-breaker. That would benefit Tennessee.

Again, there are outs. All of those aforementioned national results that all SEC contenders root for apply to Tennessee as much as any team in America. The more chaos, the better. I spent roughly 30 minutes on bball.nothing.net trying to find any scenario for Tennessee to reach the SEC Championship, and I came up with nothing (I’m willing to admit there’s still somehow a path and I just didn’t want to spend 3 hours trying to find it).

The Vols would certainly appreciate the right amount of chaos.

Texas

This shouldn’t be that difficult to figure out for Texas, who sits at No. 3. A 10-win Texas team likely isn’t getting left out of the field, though a blowout loss in College Station could change that. The Longhorns have been given the benefit of the doubt by the selection committee even though they don’t have a win against the current CFP Top 25, and their only loss came convincingly against top-10 Georgia.

So what does that mean? Texas doesn’t have to root for chaos. It’s currently the highest-ranked SEC team. The better question for Texas if it suffers a loss at A&M would be whether it will host or travel for a first-round Playoff game. Texas can only get to the SEC Championship by beating A&M.

I suppose from a seeding standpoint, a 10-2 Texas would appreciate Georgia getting upset by Georgia Tech in the regular-season finale to earn its third loss. Outside of that, though, the Longhorns can root for chaos to help from a seeding standpoint, but it’s all about taking care of business with such clear respect established by the selection committee.

Texas A&M

That Notre Dame loss stings, but oddly enough, a 10-2 A&M team that beats Texas and reaches the SEC Championship would probably still get in over a 10-2 Notre Dame team. Irish fans, I would hear the gripe. In all likelihood, though, it won’t come down to that.

A&M obviously needs to win out in the regular season to have any sort of argument. Where the debate could come is if the Aggies beat Texas and lose in the SEC Championship as the No. 10-11 team. Would the selection committee put Tennessee ahead of A&M even though they both finished 10-2? That’s where that argument will get interesting because if A&M gets into the SEC Championship after beating Texas, it could be ranked slightly ahead of the Vols and potentially punished if it loses that game while the Vols are idle. That would send Kiffin and those SEC coaches into a frenzy, even if it came at A&M’s expense.

So let’s instead look at it from this standpoint. A&M, as the lowest-ranked 2-loss team from the SEC with 1 win vs. the current CFP Top 25 (No. 23 Mizzou), needs as many SEC teams as possible to get that third loss in the regular season.

  • Georgia loses to Georgia Tech
  • Tennessee loses to Vandy
  • Ole Miss loses to Florida or Mississippi State
  • Alabama loses to Oklahoma or Auburn

Any of those results would be a positive development for an A&M team that didn’t face those 4 squads. For the Aggies, though, every contest the rest of the way should be treated as a Playoff game.